


I Shivered Like a Child

by Shazrolane



Series: Imaginary Boys [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Dissociative Identity Disorder, Gen, How they made the Winter Soldier, I did my best to weave the Winter Soldier into Soviet history, I promised Taste that this would have a happy ending, Multiple Personalities, cold war history, probable historical inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-20
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-09 22:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3266957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shazrolane/pseuds/Shazrolane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Have you ever broken something into smaller and smaller pieces, until you couldn't break them any more? Those small pieces end up being stronger than the whole. The Red Room and HYDRA tried to break James Buchanan Barnes, but he was already broken, fractured into pieces.</p><p>The thing is, that made him stronger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Pain and Cold

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/gifts).
  * Inspired by [The Right Way to Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1800760) by [Taste_is_Sweet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taste_is_Sweet/pseuds/Taste_is_Sweet). 



> I read Taste_Is_Sweet's  
> The Right Way to Fall http://archiveofourown.org/works/1800760  
> and Crash Down (Break This Heart of Mine) http://archiveofourown.org/works/2295590/chapters/5048402
> 
> Those stories just ate into my brain and wouldn't let me go. Taste_Is_Sweet graciously allowed me to muddle in her verse, and then challenged me to make it better.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sergeant Barnes fell.

_Sergeant Barnes fell_

Impact, a bone bruising, organ jarring hit, then the god awful sensation of falling stopped. 

His world contracted to pain and then cold.

****

_Bucky woke up on a pile of rocks._

Cold.

Wet and cold. He was already covered in a thin blanket of snow, and more was coming down. He sat up to shake it off and almost fell off of the narrow ledge that Sergeant Barnes must have landed on. He scrambled and grabbed at the rock wall behind him, desperately searching for any handhold that would keep him from plummeting.

When he finally got himself stable again, he was taking deep, gulping sobs of breath that cut through his lungs like knives. He was on a small outcropping of rock, a third of the way down the canyon wall. The other side was a million miles away, the bridge far above his head. The depths of the gorge were a gaping chasm in front of him, waiting to swallow him whole. The entire universe was made of unforgiving snow and rock, of howling wind and biting cold. He wrapped his arms around himself and shivered like a child missing his mother. The shivers wracking the body were getting stronger. 

Bucky drew in a shuddering breath. His only choices were to sit here until the cold killed him, climb back up to the bridge, or die trying. And damned if Bucky Barnes was going to give up. He had to get up, had to get moving. Slowly, painfully, he pulled himself upright with his arms and sheer Irish stubbornness. His fingers had a hard time gripping, and his legs shook, but he did it. 

This couldn’t be any harder than watching out for Steve on the streets of Brooklyn, right? He could do this. He had to do this.

There was a place that he could reach with his right foot, then with his right hand, and then his left foot. He reached up with his left arm, then his left foot. He found a sort of rhythm, figured out how to take just a moment of rest while he searched for the next hand or foot hold. 

Of course, that was when his foot slipped. The entire weight of the body hung from his right hand for a moment, then his fingers melted the ice just enough to make him lose his grip. He clawed at the wall, his heart pounding in his chest. 

_Not again not again no no no_

Bucky Barnes fell. Or, to be more accurate, he slid down the icy rocks of the gorge, fingers shredding as he tried to grab anything. Hours(seconds) later, his right foot slammed into something, just enough to pitch his body to the left. His arm slammed into rock. Pain exploded from his elbow, ripped a scream out of his throat, only to be cut off as the agony whited out his brain.

***

_James woke up in the snow._

He put his hands down to help push himself up into a sitting position, and his left gave out.

No. His left arm wasn’t _there_. All he could see was… _something_ , something that wasn’t an arm. He made the mistake of touching it.

His fingers touched something that he didn’t want to think about and between that and the pain he ended up getting sick all over the snow. And he was alone and scared and it hurt so bad and he just wanted his mom.

He screamed and yelled and called for help until he was hoarse and then he cried until his tears started freezing to his face. When that finished he was right back where he’d started, before he took the time to be some sort of soppy knucklehead. Tears and snot were freezing in his hair, and that made it even colder when the wind blew on his face. 

Growing up in Brooklyn, a kid got to know the difference between cold and killing cold. “B-Bucky woul-wouldn’t give up,” he told himself through his chattering teeth. He looked up, far overhead at the train bridge, that he could barely see. “Train’s gotta be going somewhere, right? And you’re supposed to follow rivers downstream, right?” He thought he remembered something like that from school. 

Doing something almost always felt better than doing nothing, so he set out. Every step he took made the arm jiggle and shake and hurt. The pain made him sweat. The wind quickly dried the sweat, making him even colder. And he was so thirsty. Even though he knew he probably shouldn’t do it, he dug the tin cup out of Barnes’ belt pouch and scooped some water up from the river. The water made him colder, and he had to stop drinking even though he was still thirsty. 

__He pulled his ripped coat as closely around himself as he could with one good arm and kept walking, hoping to find someone to help him._ _

__What he finally found was a pile of wood, sticks, twigs and grass, probably left by a flood. It was jammed up against a big boulder and the wall of the canyon._ _

__James didn’t know how to start a fire. But he knew someone who did. He found a spot where he could tuck himself in and avoid just a little of the wind. He leaned back against a branch and stepped backwards into his mind._ _

__***_ _

__Mary, Mother of Christ. Even if he got out of here, and damned if he knew how he was going to manage that, what good was a sniper with only one arm? They’d ship him home, and then who the hell would be around to look after Steve?_ _

___Get it together, Barnes_ , he told himself. _You’re still alive, and if you’re alive, you can fight._ _ _

__Barnes always carried a first aid kit with him, because Steve was a heroic idiot who never let someone else get hurt when he could do it for them. Included in the kit was some petroleum jelly for protecting skin or wounds. Matched up with cotton gauze, it’d probably burn enough to start a fire. He checked his jacket pocket and sure enough, his Zippo was still there, with the map of Austria that Steve had scratched on it. Staring at it only strengthened his resolve. He had to keep going._ _

__Barnes had one hell one of a time, trying to get things out of his belt pouches with only one hand. It wasn’t just the awkwardness of it all; every movement of his body caused torment from his mangled left arm. But there was no way that he was going to buy the farm, just because it hurt. He’d always been a fighter, and that wasn’t going to change now._ _

__He searched through the giant pile up, looking for smaller pieces of wood that would catch first and burn long enough to catch pieces the next size up. It took a lot of trial and error, and using his booted feet to dig through the wood. He managed to drop everything about hundred times, but he finally got a pile of twigs over smaller twigs over grass. He shoved some cotton covered in petroleum jelly under that, and held his lighter to it._ _

___Hail Mary, full of grace, I really need you with me, let this work, I know I’m a sinner but please don’t let this be the hour of my death._ _ _

__The flame guttered and shook in the wind that snuck around him, but it held long enough to lick across the cotton, and it caught. He breathed out the fourth most sincere prayer of thanks in his life (the first two had been for Steve surviving yet another bout of pneumonia, and the third had been for Steve rescuing him)._ _

__It took him a tense 20 minutes, but he was able to nurse the fire until one of the larger logs caught. He used his boots to scrape most of the snow away from a rock, and sat down. He had more water in his cup, heating in front of the fire with a bouillon cube from his rations in it. As soon as the water started steaming, he started drinking it, small sips at a time. His injury was still making him nauseous, but he thought he could feel some energy returning to him with every mouthful he was able to swallow. He settled in for the long night._ _

__In the morning, the best he could say about the night was that he survived it. He'd kept down about half a cup of broth, and the fire had kept him from freezing. The fire had actually grown in the night to encompass all of the logs, and he'd had to move back several times. He didn’t have any way to put it out at this point, but it didn’t look like it had any way to spread beyond the pile of flood debris._ _

__When there wasn’t much he could do, it was time to just soldier on. He drank a few more swallows of the broth, forced himself to his feet, and kept walking as long as he could. When he couldn’t keep going, he stepped back and let Bucky take over._ _

___I’m born and raised in Brooklyn, the hell do I know about a situation like this?_ Bucky mumbled to himself as he trudged onwards. The body was tired, exhausted even, and it would have been easy to just sit down, to give up. But Steve had never given up just because he was tired, and damned if he was going to._ _

__But even Brooklyn levels of stubbornness could only take him so far before he collapsed in the snow. He needed to rest for a moment. Steve’d worry for a bit, if he was late, but Bucky knew how to distract him from it. He could always get Steve to laugh. Things’d be fine once he got back to the apartment. He just needed a moment._ _

__Just a moment._ _

__The snow coming down sure was pretty._ _

__Odd how it wasn’t cold anymore._ _

__***_ _

__Voices, speaking a language he didn’t know. Hands reached out and rolled him over, dislodged snow that had gathered on top of him. He blinked but the snowflakes on his eyelashes made his vision blurry. The hands rolled him back onto something hard and mostly smooth._ _

__The world tilted, then dropped out from underneath him. Things were moving wrong, his feet were in the air. He tried to roll, tried to get to his feet but the hands held him down as the voices spoke again in the strange language._ _

__Someone wiped the snow off of his face, and a face came into view, wearing a fur hat with a red star on it. Russians, then. Not Nazis._ _

__That was all that mattered, that he wasn’t in the hands of the Nazis again._ _

__Everything would be okay this time._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To returning readers, my sincere thanks. To new readers, welcome! I hope you enjoyed this.


	2. Powerless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His sobs grew even quieter, just hiccuping catches in his breath, until all he could hear was the water dripping into the puddle along the wall opposite from where he was. He had learned from experience that the walls were just as cold as the floor, so it didn’t really make a difference. He laid down, trying to find a position that hurt less. And before he fell asleep, James wished with all his might for someone to keep him safe.

James was crying again, wracking sobs that pulled at every torn muscle, every cut and broken bone. Something was wrong inside; there was a fierce pain in his lower back and there had been blood in his pee. The stump was the worst, still sensitive from the surgery to remove the mangled arm, but then the bad men had cut into it just to hurt him. He knew from experience that the broken arm would heal within a week, but for the next several days it was going to ache fiercely in the cold. 

And it left him helpless to do anything for himself. One of the guards had had to help him in the bathroom with his pants. He’d peed all over himself and they’d laughed at him. Now he smelled like pee and his pants were sticking to his legs, and itching, and he couldn’t do anything about it. His tears were as much about the humiliation as the pain.

When the men had first thrown him into the cell, he’d thought it was so dark and scary. When they turned the light off, he couldn’t see anything, except for the little lines of light that leaked in around the flap that they used to shove in his food. He’d tried to hold it open, but they’d stomped on his fingers, so he’d tried to sleep with his face right up against the flap.

When they shoved the door open the next morning, it broke his nose. Now he slept in the furthest corner from the door. The darkness was his friend; they never came to get him when the room was dark. He learned to fear the light coming on, learned to hate the sound of the door opening. Now, any time he was out of the cell, he wished he was back in it. The dark, small place was the only safe place he had, outside of his head.

He dragged himself into the corner and tried to curl up, tried not to cry. He knew from experience it only made the men hurt him worse.

All he had to do, to make it stop, was to pull a trigger. He’d seen Sergeant Barnes do it, lots of times. But every time he picked up the pistol in his shaking hands and stared at the prisoner on the ground in front of him, he couldn’t do it. Killing people was wrong. His mother would cry, if she ever found out. And Sergeant Barnes would yell and be angry and then hold him, but he’d talk about how wrong it was and how Steve would be disappointed. So he put the pistol down, every time.

And every time, they hurt him more for not doing it. Crouched against the cold stone of the cell, with his broken arm held against his chest and propped on his legs, James tried to keep his sobs quiet.

His father had taught him that boys don’t cry. 

James desperately wished there was someone who would hold him, or stroke his hair, or even talk to him, but almost everyone who used to share his head had disappeared over the years. Now even Bucky was gone or sleeping, he wasn't sure which. James hadn’t seen him since that day when the bad men made him listen to radio broadcasts about Captain America dying in a plane crash. There had been piles of newspapers, too, from America and England and France and Italy and Germany. Bucky had walked into his bedroom in their mind, and just never came out. 

The only other person left was Sergeant Barnes, who’d split off from Bucky in Zola’s lab. James was glad they’d had him; Sgt. Barnes had kept them safe on the battlefields and had become a soldier so that James and Bucky didn’t have to. But he’d split from Bucky, and so his focus was on winning the war and keeping Steve safe, not James. 

He wanted his mommy so badly that it hurt, too, only this hurt was inside his heart. But he couldn’t make a mommy. Boys couldn’t be girls, boys had to be stronger than girls, his father said. 

Fathers were loud, and scary, and threatening. He didn’t want a father.

Maybe an older brother.

His sobs grew even quieter, just hiccuping catches in his breath, until all he could hear was the water dripping into the puddle along the wall opposite from where he was. He had learned from experience that the walls were just as cold as the floor, so it didn’t really make a difference. He laid down, trying to find a position that hurt less. And before he fell asleep, James wished with all his might for someone to keep him safe.

* * *

When he woke up in the morning, there was a stranger in his head. He pushed the blankets out of the way and sat up, watching the stranger who crouched in the corner of the room. He was older than James, and tall, with big muscles on both of his arms, but he didn’t look as old as Sergeant Barnes. He even looked younger than Bucky had been.

“Do you know who are you?” James asked.

The other shook his head.

“You’re my brother,” James told him. “You’re supposed to protect me.”

The stranger stayed quiet for a moment, then nodded, accepting this role. He got to his feet and explored the room - one tattered couch with sagging cushions, a chair, a doorway into a kitchen. The kitchen had two doors. 

“The one straight ahead belongs to Sergeant Barnes. He doesn’t like anyone else going in there,” James said quietly from behind.

The newcomer paused with his hand on the knob, then nodded and opened the other door instead.

* * *

For some reason, he found himself lying curled on the floor of what sounded like a very small cell. He sat up, his breath hissing between his teeth at the pain in his arms. The room was too dark for him to see, but there was something hard around his right arm and the arm itself ached, deep inside.

He tried to get to his feet, but his balance was off for some reason. He put out his left hand to catch himself, but instead there was a searing pain above his elbow. It felt like the bone itself hit the wall, instead of his hand. He cried out in pain.

The door at the front opened, and two guards stepped in. “ _Znatknis!_ they yelled, and threw a bucket of cold water on him.

He was wearing thin pants, but no shirt, and the cold water hit him like a thousand knives, driving the breath from his body. He fell to his knees, gasping ineffectively, his already sore muscles tensing up more from the cold. 

Long, long moments later, when he could breathe again, he explored the cell, trying to find the door back into the place where the boy was, but he couldn’t find it. He was stuck here, in a place of cold and darkness, with rules he didn’t understand. 

Figuring them out had to be a priority, if he was going to keep himself and the boy safe.

The cell was maybe three or four feet wide and about eight feet long long, and utterly empty. The only light was what little leaked around a metal flap in the door. The door was the only feature he found; the cell was completely barren.

One arm was in a cast, the other stopped above his elbow. The end of the stump was covered in scars, some old and some new. Every part of him was battered and bruised.

Some time later, but not long enough for him to be dry, a bowl was pushed through an opening at the bottom of the door. He shuffled forward on his knees as he had done during his explorations, unable to use the broken arm and not willing to risk hurting his arm (stump?) again. The bowl had some sort of food in it.

He was very hungry. He used his teeth to pull it between his knees, then ate out of the bowl like a dog.

He would do what it took to survive. But one day, he’d find these men who had done this to him, and he’d make them pay. The thought made him smile.

At some point, he fell asleep, and woke up back in the place with the boy. “Come on,” the boy said, “You can share the couch with me.” James was still favoring his broken arm, but he managed to get blankets and pillows out of a chest for both of them. The boy laid down, then asked, “Please? I have nightmares.”

He laid down with his little brother on the couch, which somehow had plenty of room for the two of them. He put his arm around the boy, and stroked his hair, until the youngster fell asleep. Sleep took longer to come for him.

In the morning, he woke up back in the cell. Making very certain to stay quiet, so the guards would leave him alone, he searched every inch that he could reach. There was no door to the other place. He eventually sat down on the floor, with his back against the wall, and gingerly rubbed his broken arm with the stump of the other. 

His arm, broken in the same spot as James. The two different places he seemed to live in. The fact that he had a different body in the cell than he did in the apartment with James. 

He shivered and pushed himself back into a corner, then stared at his bare feet in the faint light from the door. He reached out with one hand to touch the stump, but couldn’t bring himself to do it, both fascinated and horrified at the ideas racing through his brain.  
There was nothing in the world that he could trust right now.

When he woke up in the parlor that night, he held both of his arms out in front of him, staring at them. James stared back. 

The soldier blew out smoke from another one of his endless supply of cigarettes. “Figured it out?”

The teen answered, “We’re in the same body.” 

The soldier clapped sardonically, while James slipped off the couch and came over to hug him. “It means I’ll always have you with me. And we’re never alone! ” 

The soldier looked towards the ceiling and muttered, “Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth.” He stubbed the cigarette out on the board over the bathtub. “Welcome to the Family,” his tone dry, but not unfriendly. He slid his chair over, and pulled up two others, then tapped a deck of cards out of their battered box. “C’mon, might as well do something together.” 

James snuggling at his side, and Sergeant Barnes making wry comments, they played blackjack well into the night. They told him about the body, and the illusion of James Buchanan Barnes that they all worked to keep up. 

“Although there’s not much of a point here in this shit hole,” Barnes said, throwing his cigarette into a metal bucket of sand. “But it’s habit, at this point. The singletons just don’t get it, it makes them go crazy. Better that they don’t know.”

They told him stories of Brooklyn, and stories of war, and stories of Steve. And James fell asleep leaning against his brother, who carried him to the couch and covered him with a blanket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading


	3. Strelyat v Nego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They put a pistol in his hand, spoke in Russian, and pointed at a prisoner. 
> 
> “No,” he said. 
> 
> He learned that wasn’t an acceptable answer.

Sergeant Barnes went up front the next day, so James and his brother played cards, shot marbles, and fixed the wheels of his toy cars. As the day went on, James got more and more quiet. In the evening, when Barnes returned, James crawled into his brother’s lap, shaking with the sobs that he held in.

“They always come on the third day,” he said softly, hiding his small face against his brother’s broad shoulders. 

His brother rolled over and took the child’s face in his hands. “I’ll keep you safe,” he promised.

James smiled through his tears. “That sounds nice. Wish it was true.”

His brother held him as long as he could.

***

The next day, in the cell, the door opened. 

Guards grabbed his arms, dragged him down a hallway and out into a courtyard, where a blindfolded and bound man knelt on the frozen mud.

They put a pistol in his hand, spoke in Russian, and pointed at a prisoner. 

“No,” he said. 

The doctor spoke. "Things will be better for you if you obey."

He learned that wasn’t an acceptable answer. He fought as hard as he could but the guards responded brutally with electrical prods that put him on the ground. Soon after they started kicking him, he lost consciousness.

He woke up on the couch. Barnes was in the kitchen, throwing cards at the wall. The first five bounced off, but the sixth one stuck in the plaster. He took a puff from his cigarette, then offered it.

The teen shook his head, and breathed through the pain. After a while, he looked around.

“Where’s James?” he asked, feeling a coil of uneasiness snaking through his gut.

Barnes pointed to the wall. On it, faintly, was the outline of a door.

The teen jumped to his feet. “He’s out there? With them? We have to help him!” 

“Can’t,” Barnes said simply. He played with the lid of his lighter, snapping it open and closed. There was a map etched on it, barely visible.

He shoved past Barnes and yanked on the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

Barnes blew out a long string of smoke that disappeared before it reached the ceiling. “Only one of us can be out there. Right now, it’s James’ turn. I’m guessing you didn’t kill the guy.”

“Shut up and help me get through this door!” He yanked and shoved at the door.

“Won’t work, kid. I _told_ you, only of us at a time. It sucks that James has to be the one, but that’s just the way it is.” Barnes’ voice sounded resigned, but James’ brother could see how his hand shook as he took another long drag on the cigarette. “It’s tough, but we can’t let ‘em win. You did a good thing, not killin’ that guy.”

“Who was he?” James’ brother asked. “What makes him important enough?”

Barnes shrugged. “Some G.I. We don’t know him.”

“James is getting hurt for a stranger?” he yelled. 

“It don’t matter who he is!” Barnes shot back. “You can’t let them win. They won’t stop at killin’ one guy. It’ll go on and on, and none of it will ever make ‘em stop hurting the kid. ”

He refused to listen, and threw himself against the door for what felt like hours, until finally it opened on its own and James fell inside.

He carried the crying boy to the couch and laid him down on it, but James crawled into his lap instead. He wrapped his arms around the boy and whispered into his hair, “I’ll keep you safe from now on.”

“Shouldn’t lie to the boy,” Barnes said.

* * *

Days passed again. 

The third day came.

The prisoner fell, a neat hole in his forehead.

James’ brother put the pistol back down on the table and waited for his next command, his fist clenching and unclenching and his teeth gritted so tightly he could hear them grinding. _killing is wrong_ But it didn’t matter. _he’d killed someone_ No stranger was worth putting James through the pain again. _a stranger who hadn’t even been able to fight back._ They were nobodies. _you’re a killer_ They were nothing. Their lives and deaths were meaningless. _keep telling yourself that until you believe it._

He ignored the excited talking around him, looking solely to the woman who had given him the command. She nodded and smiled, her expression sharp like a knife.

James’ brother waited for his next command.

***

He fell asleep in the cell, and walked into the parlor. Barnes and James were waiting for him. 

“Why didn’t I get called up front today?” James asked. Hope and fear chased each other across his face.

“I don’t know,” his brother answered, walking past him and dropping heavily onto the couch. He put his elbows on his knees and let his hands dangle in between.

“I’m guessing you do,” Barnes said, standing up from his chair and walking towards him.

There was no answer.

“Did you shoot someone today?” asked Barnes.

James gasped. “He wouldn’t do that!” James spun to look at his brother, his small hands in fists. “Tell him you didn’t do that!” He stared for a long minute, his breaths coming faster and faster.“You wouldn’t do that, right?”

“I kept you safe, and that’s all that matters,” his brother replied without meeting his eyes.

“You can’t fuckin’ DO THAT!” Barnes yelled. James flinched, and that drove his brother to action. He leaped to his feet and stood toe to toe with Barnes.

“I will, if that’s what it takes to keep them from hurting James.”

“Jesus Christ, you can’t kill, can’t _murder_ some G.I.! what the hell is wrong with you?” Barnes turned abruptly and stormed into the kitchen.

“Wrong with _me?_ He’s a child. We should do anything we can to keep him safe!”

Barnes shook his head. “Not gonna happen. I spent the whole war fightin’ Nazis. I’m not helpin’ ‘em now. And I’m damn sure not selling out the boys by cooperating with these bastards!”

“You’ll just sell out James, then? Make him take the pain so you don’t have to,” he countered. 

Barnes slumped into his chair, the fight knocked out of him. “I never wanted that.” He looked over at James. “I’d do anything to take that from you.” He pulled out a cigarette and his lighter. “But we can’t give in to them, we just can’t.”

James was sitting on the chair, his arms hugged around his knees, tears running silently down his cheeks. 

His brother walked over to the chair and knelt down in front of it, putting his hands over the child’s. “I told you that I’m going to keep you safe.”

“But you can’t, you can’t do that,” James said. “Why…” his voice trailed off.

“So they will stop hurting us.”

“They’re never gonna stop that. It’s stupid to think any different.” Barnes took a drag off of his cigarette.

“We’ll figure something out,” James’ brother said to him.


	4. Brothers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James tried really hard not to be mad at his brother. James must have done something wrong when he made his brother. Something had to be broken, since his brother didn’t know that killing people was wrong. 
> 
> Well, that wasn’t really how it was. He was pretty sure his brother knew killing was wrong. He tried to hide it, tried to act like it didn’t bother him. But James had acted the same way when his father had thrown out his books or broken his toys. He’d seen Bucky act like that when Steve was mad at him, or the Sergeant when Steve got big and didn’t need him any more. When things hurt too much, people acted like they didn’t hurt at all. So his brother knew he shouldn’t kill people. He still did it, though. So he was still broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many, many thanks to Taste_Is_Sweet for the beta, hand holding and the occasional boot to the head

“What do you want?” Dr. Ivan Leybovich asked.

The walls of the room spun around his pounding head. He was using every bit of willpower he had just to stay upright. Every time he sat or laid down, they woke him up. He had no idea how long it had been since they’d let him sleep.

They hadn’t allowed him any food for two days before this all started. At first the gnawing hunger had been another torment, but now he’d gone without food for so long that by the time they’d dragged him into this room he didn’t even feel hungry anymore. Now it was the exhaustion.

“Sleep, please,” he asked. Begged. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

They gave him cold water instead, a bucket of it. He kept his face turned away, clenching his jaw so he wouldn’t yell or scream or cry.

“We need to make certain you’ve learned your lesson,” the doctor said. 

James’ brother wished they would tell him what the lesson was. His world had shrunk to nothing beyond the distant gnaw of hunger and the exhaustion bowing his head. There was no room for thought. 

“What do you want?” Dr. Ivan Leybovich asked again.

It took long moments for his mind to pull up words in any language, much less for him to be able to parse words in Russian. He finally found his voice. “Tell me … what to say.”

“Better.” The doctor smiled while shaking his head. “But not good enough.”

***

James tried really hard not to be mad at his brother. James must have done something wrong when he made his brother. Something had to be broken, since his brother didn’t know that killing people was wrong. 

Well, that wasn’t really how it was. He was pretty sure his brother knew killing was wrong. He tried to hide it, tried to act like it didn’t bother him. But James had acted the same way when his father had thrown out his books or broken his toys. He’d seen Bucky act like that when Steve was mad at him, or the Sergeant when Steve got big and didn’t need him any more. When things hurt too much, people acted like they didn’t hurt at all. So his brother knew he shouldn’t kill people. He still did it, though. So he was still broken.

But James was glad he was doing it. He knew it was wrong, knew he should care about the innocent people. He did, he really did. He never could do it himself, and every night he told his brother, “You can’t do it anymore. It’s wrong.”

But every night his brother said, “I’m keeping you safe.” And held him. 

And most days James wasn’t being hurt any more. Most days they left him alone. The only times he did get hurt was when they wanted information, and brother didn’t know it.That really made him mad. He spent a lot of time yelling at Sergeant Barnes on those nights, after. And Barnes yelled right back. And sometimes they hit each other. James hated that. 

James would go into the parlor and pull the cushions over his head. He’d try not to hear them yelling. Sometimes, when people were angry from yelling, they’d hit you. Sergeant Barnes and his brother never hit him, even when they hit each other. But it still made him scared.

Afterwards, his brother would come over to the couch, and hold him, and stroke his hair. And promise to do his best to keep James safe.

Even though something was broken about his brother, James still loved him.

One night his brother asked him if they could go for a walk, outside of the Place, so James took him down the narrow stairs and out into the street. It was weird, seeing Brooklyn with no one else around, but they walked all around the neighborhood. James did most of the talking, because his brother hadn’t really seen much to talk about. 

His brother spent most of his days in the cell. James felt bad about that, but his brother said that it was okay, because it meant that James was safe in the Place. And the cell was boring, but at least it was safe too.

But James knew that some days, his brother didn’t get to stay in the cell. On those days, he was either angry or sad. James tried to cheer him up on the sad days. He’d bring over his favorite cars or his marbles. One time, his brother yelled and threw the bag of marbles across the room. But then he apologized and helped to find all of them. 

Most of the time when he was sad, the only thing that seemed to make him feel any better was to hold James tight. And James tried, he really did, but after a while he just couldn’t help it. He _had_ to move. So his brother would let him go. 

Sergeant Barnes got angry on the sad days, because it meant brother had killed someone. So James started taking his brother on more walks. They’d walk down the empty streets, sometimes stopping to play hopscotch or mumblety peg. They could hear Sergeant Barnes’ rifle shooting in the distance. It didn’t bother James. He knew it was just one of the things that the Sergeant did when he was angry: target practice. James knew he was upset about losing one arm, and never being able to be a good shot again, outside of their head.

So walks became a good thing. A safe thing. There was never any yelling, and no one threw things or hit anything. Walks were full of climbing fences, and walking on walls, and playing kick the can. Walks were full of stories of school and stick ball and Steve. When James ran out of stories, his brother asked him about stories from the war. 

James hadn’t come out too much in the war, so he didn’t have so many of those stories to tell. But he remembered a lot of stories that Sergeant Barnes had told him, so he shared those. His brother seemed interested, and listened as they kicked a can down the sidewalk, or while they threw rocks into the river. 

 

On some days, James got pulled to the front, where the bad men hurt him. When he came back the Place, his brother would sit with him and hold him while he cried. Sergeant Barnes would bring him ice cream and tell him stories of Bucky and Steve getting in and out of trouble. 

James hated getting hurt, but the evenings afterwards were some of the best, when everyone got along and voices were soft. When all of them had a chance to laugh. He knew the other two were mad; he could see it in their eyes or in the way that their hands shook. But he knew they were angry _for_ him, not at him, so it was okay. On those nights, when the memory of the pain was fading, and he was settled down to sleep on the couch, his brother’s arm around him, on those nights things were okay. 

 

James learned to enjoy his days in the Place, with Sergeant Barnes absent-mindedly watching over him while he played. He loved his nightly walks with his brother. As long as his brother and the Sergeant weren’t together too often, things were okay.

Okay wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad. Sometimes that was the best you could get.

So he was happy with okay.

***  
“Look kid, if this would stop at just one killing, I’d let it go,” Barnes said. 

“I’m not putting some stranger ahead of James!” the teen snapped back, a Russian accent coloring his words. “At least I’m fast, most of the time I kill them with the first shot. A bullet through the brain is better than torture.” Behind the teen, James flinched. He kept playing with his toy car, pretending he couldn’t hear the argument, but his shoulders were hunched.

Barnes tried reason. “That’s how they get to you, they take your thoughts and your good intentions and twist them up until you can’t recognize them any more!” You can’t let them in, can’t open the door. Don’t give ‘em any ground that you can’t afford to retake.”

“It’s always about your _morals_ ,” the other sneered. 

Barnes held his temper. “Yeah, because it’s the right thing to do.”

The teen stepped forward into his space, “It’s easy to do when you aren’t the one paying the price.”

“Wish to Jesus and Mary that I could,” Barnes said, looking away. He glanced back at James, guiltily. What kind of a monster was he, that he’d refuse to do the one thing that would keep a child safe, while a teen, practically a child himself, carried out the dirty work that had always been Barnes’ job?

“Easy words. But then, that’s what you’re all about, isn’t it?”

His attention snapped back to the younger man. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

“It’s easy to stay in the back, shoot targets at long distance, where you don’t have to see their faces.”

What the hell? He hadn’t said anything about that. How many people had he killed for them? “How would you…” he trailed off, knowing damned well how the teen would know that. Barnes fisted a hunk of the kid’s shirt and yanked him closer. “They wouldn’t have you on enemy combatants yet, it’s still prisoners, isn’t it? They wouldn’t risk guards, not when you only have one arm to hold the rifle.” The teen’s left arm wavered and went transparent for a moment. “They’re letting them run, aren’t they?”

The younger man looked away, then clenched his jaw and lifted his head defiantly. “I’m consistent up to 200 meters. Not bad for one arm.”

“Jesus Christ.” Barnes shoved the kid away from him and stalked into the kitchen.

“You can’t… why would you do that?” James sounded horrified. He was on his feet, his car forgotten.

“Go into Barnes’ room,” the teen ordered. 

“No! No, you can’t _do_ that! They’re running, and...and--” James’s breath caught on a sob.

“If I don’t do it, someone else will. And then you get hurt, and the prisoners still die.” He shrugged.

“But they’re people, just like us!”

The teen shook his head. “They are strangers. They’re not important. I follow orders, and it makes things better for us.”

“Jesus,” Barnes spat. “You’re like a little copy of Ivan Leybovich, spouting the same things he says.”

A nasty smirk crossed the teen’s face. “Maybe that is who I am, then. Little Ivan, Vanya.” His accent got thicker. “You are little Steve, and it got us nowhere.”

Barnes felt his stomach roil. 

“Steve is a good person. Leybovich isn’t,” said James, tears evident in his voice

“I know that,” the teen snarled. “Don’t you think I _know_ that? But where are all the good people in your life? Steve’s dead, Bucky’s gone, and the _Sergeant_ doesn’t care about you.”

“That’s enough!” Barnes ordered. 

“My name is Vanya,” he countered, then turned to James, his voice gentle. “It’s only strangers. It’s no one important.”

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Barnes demanded.

“Killing people is bad,” James said through tears. 

The te- Vanya dropped to one knee and took James’ hand. “If I don’t shoot them, the guards set the dogs on them. My bullets are faster, easier.” He stood up, still holding James’ hand. “You don’t need to worry about it. Let’s go for a walk.”

James shook his head. “I...not tonight. Go without me.”

“I can stay,” Vanya offered.

“Just go. Please.”

Hurt flickered across his face, but Vanya shut it down quickly, then walked out the door as snow started to fall.

 

***

Barnes sat at the kitchen table, smoking and staring at the calendar on the wall. If he wasn’t careful, sometimes the walls would ripple and change into canvas. He’d never actually been in the apartment in Brooklyn--he only knew it from Bucky’s endless descriptions of it, like it was some sort of god damned heaven on Earth.

Then again, any place where people weren’t trying to hurt you sounded like heaven to hi.

 _Careful what you wish for,_ he snorted to himself. The only shooting happening here was when James’ fuckin’ brother was doing it. 

His fuckin’ teen brother. Kid was as tall as Barnes was, but didn’t have nearly the muscle mass. He couldn’t be more than 16 or 17. Christ. He stubbed out his cigarette. 

He didn’t actually dislike the kid. As hard as it was to swallow, Barnes understood why he cooperated, why he killed for them. And in the Sergeant’s weaker moments, he was almost glad. 

He scraped his thumbnail along a gouge in the board, slowly making it longer and deeper. He wasn’t a monster; he was a soldier. But this damn war, it took good men and chewed them up and spat them out. 

All but Steve. 

And it was because of Steve that he couldn’t do it, couldn’t shoot those men to save his own hide, or even James. 

Barnes had to find a way to convince him to stop. But every time he tried, they ended up yelling at each other. The kid got under his skin like no one’s business, alway knew exactly the right thing to say to set Barnes off like a grenade. 

They couldn’t go on like this.

He understood why the kid killed for them. But Barnes couldn’t let him do it. He couldn’t keep letting the kid-- _Vanya_ \--kill more and more people for the sake of one kid. Even if that kid was James.

He dropped his head down to the board with a solid thunk.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this was made immeasurably better by the members of The Beta Branch, and Taste_is_Sweet. All remaining mistakes are my own.
> 
> Russian translations courtesy of Google translate. If anyone would like to correct it, I would appreciate it!


End file.
